A legal dispute with Ecotricity meant that Superchargers were in hard-to-reach locations.

Share this story

Tesla, following the settlement of a long-running legal case, is finally going to bring some Superchargers to the UK's motorways. Seven new Supercharging stations, all located at motorway service stations, are now in the process of being built, with more coming "soon."

Heretofore, Tesla's somewhat anaemic Supercharger roll-out in the UK had mostly been located in cities; not exactly the ideal place to charge up your car for a long-distance drive. Some Superchargers were located near a motorway or main road, but not in motorway service stations.

As reported by Engadget, the dearth of motorway Superchargers was apparently due to a legal dispute between Tesla and Ecotricity, a UK-based company that already had a large number of electric vehicle charging points across the country, including exclusivity deals at motorway service stations.

According to a few newspaper and website reports, Tesla approached Ecotricity prior to the launch of right-hand-drive Model S in the UK, to try and strike some kind of deal to get Supercharging stations into motorway service stations. Seemingly, at some point that deal turned sour, with Ecotricity's founder saying back in May 2014 that "this is nothing more than an attempted smash and grab raid." Soon after, both companies hunkered down in litigation land, suing and countersuing each other. This week they finally reached an out-of-court settlement.

Yesterday, somewhat suspiciously and/or coincidentally, both Tesla and Ecotricity published very similar blog posts. Neither post referenced the other company, instead focusing on their commitment to grow their UK electric vehicle charging networks. While the details of the settlement are confidential, given that Tesla is now allowed to build Superchargers at motorway service stations, it would appear to have got its way.

There are currently 22 Supercharger stations in the UK, with lots more to come later in 2015 and 2016. Along with the seven motorway locations, Tesla says it's currently focusing on growing its presence in eastern England (where there are currently no Superchargers), and the west of Scotland (there's one Supercharger in Scotland currently, in Edinburgh). Moving into 2016, Northern Ireland and Ireland will also get their first batch of Supercharger stations.

Share this story

Sebastian Anthony
Sebastian is the editor of Ars Technica UK. He usually writes about low-level hardware, software, and transport, but it is emerging science and the future of technology that really get him excited. Emailsebastian@arstechnica.co.uk//Twitter@mrseb